Temperance & Other Virtues
by Trufreak89
Summary: After a week in the TARDIS River's patience is wearing thin with the happy couple. Amy/River & Amy/Rory


**Title: ** Temperance and other Virtues

**Summary: ** After a week in the TARDIS River's patience is wearing thin with the happy couple.

**Disclaimer: ** I sadly own nothing related to Doctor Who or the BBC.

**Rating: ** PG

**A/N: ** Amy/River, Amy/Rory. Rather angst-y. Post Big Bang.

River watched the happy couple as they ran around the console room of the TARDIS. Amy screamed as Rory chased after her, intending to get revenge for the water bomb she'd thrown at his head. She dived behind River and giggled as she used the older woman as a human shield. Rory stalled to a halt as he caught sight of River's less than impressed expression. He had met the woman only once before, at the time the universe had been ending and he had killed his fiancee; they were hardly close friends. Amy, never one for personal space anyway, knew the woman well enough to hide behind her and trust her not to turn her over to Rory.

"S-sorry." Rory mumbled as he backed away from the blonde. Amy took her chance and dived forward, snatching the water bomb he was clutching out of his hand and slammed it down on his head. She erupted in to a fit of hysterics as Rory's eyes widened and he dived towards her again. She ran back the way they had come, presumably to fetch more water bombs, though goodness knew where she was getting them from, and Rory followed her. His bare feet slipped on the glass floor and he went skidding towards the console. He narrowly missed slamming in to a big red button that did not look like it was meant to be pushed.

"For God's sake this isn't a play area!" River lost her patience and shouted at the pair. Rory scrambled to his feet and hid behind Amy. The young redhead looked unimpressed by her out burst. She and Rory were certainly not children and River only popped on to the TARDIS now and again, it was their home more than hers.

"Oh lighten up will you!" She snapped, aware that River had been off with them the entire week she had been there. She had barely said two words to anyone who wasn't the Doctor.

"Lighten up?" Amy's words were like fuel to the fire. "Your _boyfriend _just nearly fell on the central console. If he'd have hit the wrong thing then we would have all been for it!" She spat the word 'boyfriend' out like it left a bad taste on her tongue.

"Husband actually." Rory piped up, instantly regretting it as both women turned their glares on him. "Right. I'll leave you to it." With a quick peck to Amy's cheek he excused himself to go change in to some dry clothes. If traveling through time and space had taught Rory anything at all it was this: Do not interfere when Amy goes off on one.

"What's going on River?" Amy tried to let her attitude drop. She had gotten on well with the blonde on previous occasions, though for shorter periods of time, and she wanted to know what was making her so irritable this time around.

"Nothing." River sighed, her body seeming to deflate as she huffed out the breath. Amy took a step closer and placed a comforting hand on the older woman's arm. She recoiled at the touch. A flash of hurt flitted across Amy's features.

"River? What's going on?" She tried again, unsure of what she had done to upset the archeologist. "Have I done something? Or am I going to do something?" Despite her best efforts River could not keep her face neutral as Amy questioned her. The ever observant redhead did not miss the pain in her eyes.

"You're punishing me for something I haven't even done yet?" Amy snapped, her anger rising quickly. "That'snot fair River!"

The blonde stole a glance at the wedding band on Amy's finger. "No." She replied, her tone short and her voice loud. "I'm mad at you for something you will _never _do Amy! I'm mad at you for remembering _everything _about the Doctor. And your precious boyfriend!" She stormed past Amy, shoving in to the Doctor as she passed him at the door.

"River"? He frowned as he called after her retreating back, "What's wrong with her?" The Doctor turned to Amy for answers, but she had none herself and could only offer him a halfhearted shrug.

"I'll go-"

"No." The Doctor shook his head, he looked deep in thought for a moment before adding. "You stay here. I'll go."

It took the Doctor quite a while to track River down. He quickly came to the conclusion that he had absolutely no idea where River's room was, and the TARDIS was being no help at all. She had first directed him to a room full of balloon animals. He made a mental note of where it was so he could return, but then carried on his search. She took him to the Library, the small dressing room full of cricket supplies, and a broom cupboard before he finally stopped in the middle of the corridor and glared up at the ceiling.

"Now listen here! You are my ship, I don't know why you feel the need to protect River, but I need to speak to her. So stop this nonsense." The ship hummed around him in response. "Where is she?" A door to his left creaked open. He smiled and ran his hand over one of the panels on the wall as a gesture of thanks.

"River?" He stood tentatively at the door, unsure of whether to intrude now that he had actually found her. River Song lay curled up on her bed. Her eyes were red and swollen from crying. The Doctor had never seen the blonde looking so vulnerable. Even facing her own death she had been stout and resolute. "What's going on? Why are you crying?" River refused to acknowledge his question. She rubbed at her drying eyes, trying to hide the evidence that she had just been crying.

The Doctor took a seat on the edge of the bed. "You know, contrary to popular belief, I'm not completely oblivious. You and Amy have been at each others throats the entire week you've been here. What's going on River?" River sighed and swallowed before her lips parted to reply.

"That's exactly what I want to know." Amy stood leaning on the wooden frame of the door to River's room. Apparently the TARDIS had allowed her to find River quite easily.

"I thought I told you wait in the console room." The Doctor snapped, aware that River's lips had clamped shut and her body language had turned defensive. She held her arms wrapped around herself and her jaw was tightly set.

"And I ignored you." Amy shot back. Hadn't the Doctor known her long enough to know that nine times out of ten she wasn't going to listen to him?

"Right. Glad we clarified that. Perhaps you could-"

"Won't your boyfriend be missing you?" River had had enough of the redhead for one day. To have her invading the sanctuary of her own living quarters was the final straw. She knew how to push the younger woman's buttons. It would be easy for River to get her to leave her alone. Too easy.

"Husband." Amy snapped back. Her patience with the blonde was wearing thin.

Had she not met River before, and had she not owed her her life to some degree, she would have thought the archeologist was moody and brooding. Not the type of person Amy wanted to be acquainted with. Except the River she had first met was fun and flirtatious. She was daring and brave and she knew how to wind the Doctor up better than even Amy herself.

"My mistake." River offered her a sickly sweet smile in response. Her sincerity was far from genuine. "Or maybe yours?"

With those three words the tension that had been brewing between the two women erupted in to full blown hostility. "Now ladies-"

"Out." Amy silenced the Doctor before he could even start his peace negotiations.

"Amy-"

"You heard her Doctor." River rose from the bed and manhandled the Doctor towards Amy. She was grateful for once that his current regeneration was so gangly and Amy easily manhandled him out of the door before slamming it in his face.

"Amy! River!" He pounded on the door and tugged at the handle, but it did not budge. The TARDIS saw to that. "Oh this is bad. This is very very bad."

Inside the room Amy slowly turned her back on the door, ready to face River. The frustration that had been slowly brewing the entire week the blonde had been aboard the TARDIS began to slowly seep to the surface. Leaking from every pore in her body. Her hands, clenched at her sides, began to shake and tremble. River Song stood before her, her hands on her hips and a smirk on her lips. Everything about the blonde screamed attitude and arrogance.

"So, what now?"

"I know." Amy's words left River confused and unsettled.

"You know?" River tried for cocky but her words came out too quiet. Too curious.

She took an involuntary step backwards as Amy took a step closer. It had been some time since she had been the uncertain one. She was meant to be the one with the spoilers and all of the knowledge. Knowledge was power. Power was control. River desperately needed control.

"I know why you're mad at me and Rory. And I'm sorry. Really I am."

"Care to enlighten me?" Her voice sounded a little more steady as she forced herself to take two steps forward. It was the turn of Amy's confidence to waiver as the blonde slowly approached her in an unmistakeably predatory fashion.

"I've been rubbing your face in it that me and Rory are married." Amy informed her, her own voice tinged with sadness. "That's why you hate me." Her words were like a slap in the face and River found herself left almost speechless. For a few moments at least.

"Amy, I don't hate you. I could _never _hate you." River's words were sincere as she stepped forward and wrapped her arms around the younger girl. "I'm sorry about this last week. I've had a lot on my mind. I wasn't sure if you remembered or not and now that you're married, well it didn't seem right to bring it up and...and you have no idea what I'm talking about do you?"

Amy's baffled expression said it all. "Why wouldn't it be right to bring up your marriage to the Doctor? I thought that was why you were being so bitchy, because the Doctor doesn't know you yet and you're his wife and...hang on, what were you talking about?"

River put some physical distance back between the two of them before answering. "Nothing. It doesn't matter. Go back to Rory." She hand not meant to sound so bitter, but her mask was falling and she wanted Amy far away before she let it fully slip. Slumping down on to her bed she held her face in her hands, trying to hold it together.

"Why am I crying?" Amy's words caught her attention and she looked up to find tears streaming down the redhead's cheeks.

"I wish I could tell you." River's words came out choked and strangled as she suppressed the sob that was building up in her throat. "But I can't. You're Rory's wife and I'm...I'm someone else."

"Tell me who you are." Amy was not sure where the request came from, but she was suddenly sure discovering River's identity was the most important thing in the universe. "You're not the Doctor's wife are you?"

River offered her a sad and crooked smile, "I'm not really the marrying type." The blonde did not miss the way Amy fiddled with her wedding band in response to her words. She carried on, regardless of the voice in the back of her mind that was screaming for her to get as far away from Amy Pond as possible. "I'm not a very good person Amy-"

"I asked who you are. Not who you're not." The fiery Scott crossed her arms over her chest and lay back against the door, indicating she wasn't going anywhere in a hurry.

"All right." Amy felt something stirring in the pit of her stomach as River fixed her with a dark and brooding gaze. "I'll tell you who I _am_." The familiar predatory confidence had returned to the archeologist and Amy found herself being closed in on as the woman took three purposeful steps forward, leaving barely an inch between them.

"I am many things Amy. I am a daughter, a friend and a lover and once I was even a wife. I am an archeologist. I am a time traveler. A companion to the Doctor and a keeper of secrets. _But, _above all else, I am a murderer." Her words left Amy wide eyed and speechless. Suddenly the enigma that was River Song had become a danger. She wanted to ask who she had killed; and why. Her body betrayed her though, as her lips parted and no sound escaped. River watched the emotions play out over Amy's face. Fear and mistrust. Guilt and regret. She knew the knowledge she had shared would build an impenetrable wall between them. Amy would begin to avoid being alone with her. No longer would she follow the blonde in to an empty room if she were upset. They would become strangers once more. A heavy price to pay; but a necessary one.

Their lives had become untangled after the Pandorica. Realities had shifted. Histories and futures had been re-written. Amy was too close to remember what had been stolen from her. River on the other hand had been traveling long enough to see the remnants of the threads that once bound their lives together. The strings were ragged and loose, knotted and crossed from the universe re-writing itself over and over again.

"You saved my life. In the forest, you transported me and you saved my life...that has to count for something." River felt a lump forming in her throat. She should have known Amy Pond would not give up on her so easily. The knowledge that Amy was still fighting her corner was comforting, like a snap shot of how things had been. Should have been.

"It counts for everything." It was the start of things after all.

_A painfully tight embrace after she'd been torn from the very grip death. A chaste kiss. A thank you with the promise of so much more. A stolen night on an alien world where, for once, they didn't have to run for their lives. An unspoken understanding, a night of passion that turned in to a life of domesticity. Or as domestic as life in the TARDIS could be. _

That life was gone now. The tangled threads of fate had twisted and knotted too much to be undone by any confession. Even if River told her everything, accounted for every minute of her life from meeting the Doctor to finding Amy, and losing her again, to taking the life of the best man she had ever known, it would not be enough. Amy was a wife. River was broken. Things were how they were meant to be.

"It counts for everything." She repeated, her gaze growing darker than Amy had ever seen it. "But it means nothing." The words tore at the strings of River's already ravaged heart. She needed space. Needed Amy Pond out of her life and out of her mind. One need was achievable, even if the other was not.

"Maybe you shouldn't have bothered then!" Amy snapped. There was something in her expression, something beyond anger. It is said the eyes are the windows to the soul, and as River stared in to Amy it seemed, for a moment anyway, her soul was just as torn as the older woman's. Her hand found the door handle and she yanked the door open with a sharp pull. "You know, when I saw you at the wedding, when I had your diary in my hands...I felt like something was missing. Not just the Doctor. I still feel like that sometimes. When you drop in for all five minutes and then just take off again! I feel like I've forgotten something really important...obviously I was wrong!" She hovered at the door, waiting for River to contradict her. Offering her a second chance.

It was one she could not take. It took everything left inside of her to reply. "Obviously." The door slammed shut behind her. River slumped against the wooden door, her legs buckling beneath her. She didn't have the strength to make it over to her bed and so she let herself drop to the floor. A low rap on the other side of the wood had her letting out a desperate sigh.

"For goodness sake!" She couldn't keep pushing Amy away. She didn't have it in her to turn her back on the young Scott yet again. If the fiery redhead insisted on trying to get close, River would not always be able to keep her at arms length. The truth would come out and the complicated relationships between the TARDIS' four inhabitants would become even more twisted and inseparable. River had to separate herself from them. From Amy.

The knocking became insistent and River found herself getting back to her feet and answering with a scowl. "What?" She snapped, though her expression softened as she found herself face to face with the Doctor.

"Oh dear. Did I forget our anniversary?"

River was unamused, but she stepped aside to let him in. "Come now Doctor, you know we're not married." She slumped on to her bed and offered him a weak smile.

"Amy's a bright girl. She's had the universe pouring through her mind, shaping her dreams and stealing her memories...she will start to remember. Maybe not everything, but enough to put two and two together."

"Which of course you've already done?" River shot back at him, playing to his ego. She wasn't expecting an answer.

"To a degree." He had some memories of River and his young companion. After the Byzanthium. After the loss of Rory. He knew enough to know River was hurting. "Why haven't you told her?"

"What difference would it make?" River asked, her voice tinged with sadness. "If I tell her...If I tell Amy we were lovers. If I tell her we were married, that we..." Her eyes fluttered shut as the pain of her loss overwhelmed her. "It wouldn't change the fact that she's married to Rory. Amy doesn't need to know any of this Doctor. The burden is mine alone."

The Doctor nodded in agreement. "That's very noble. You must care a great deal for her. To let her be...but what if she starts to remember? What if she starts asking questions?"

"She won't." River replied with a certainty. "I'll be gone before morning. Amy won't see me again. It's the best way."

She waited for the Doctor to reply. He stood silently by her desk, his fingers running over the tattered blue book that served as River's diary. "She remembers River." His words tore her world apart. She sat on her bed, her eyes wide and her expression incredulous. He carried on. "Everything. She told me the night of her wedding, when Rory had gone to bed and we were alone in the console room. She remembers everything. The original universe, the one where she was an orphan with a crack in her wall. She remembers the universe with Rory. _And without_. The universe with you..."

"No human mind should be able to cope with that." There were a thousand thoughts running through the blonde's mind and that was all she could express. The Doctor let out a small chuckle.

"Well, we all know Amy is far from normal. She's the girl whose entire life doesn't make sense. Why should it start now?"

"Why didn't she tell me?" River covered her face with her hands and struggled to resist the urge to scream.

"The same reasons you didn't tell _her_ I suppose." The Doctor shrugged. Amy had not gone in to great detail with him. He had not pushed her to. "She's married River. She thinks she's protecting you this way."

"And what do you think?"

The Doctor tore his eyes away from the diary and finally looked at her. His gaze was burdened with almost a thousand years of loss. If anyone knew River's pain it was the Time Lord standing before her. "I think the universe can be very cruel."


End file.
